Creating an Environment for Successful Projects, 3rd Edition

By Randall Englund and Robert J. Graham

Now in its third edition, this project management classic has been updated with an array of field-tested tools to help upper management ensure the success of projects within organizations.

For over twenty years, Creating an Environment for Successful Projects has been a staple for upper managers who want to help projects succeed. This new edition includes case studies from companies that have successfully applied the approach, along with practical tools such as templates, surveys, and benchmark reports for savvy leaders who want to ensure project success throughout their organizations. The insights in this book will help management speed projects along instead of getting in their way. All too often, well-intentioned managers put roadblocks in the team's way instead of empowering them with the tools they need to succeed. This approach to project environments, grounded in decades of research and practice, will help you make your organization the most project-friendly it's ever been.

Organizational changes rarely work unless upper management is heavily involved. Although project managers are most closely responsible for the success of projects, upper managers are the ones who ultimately create an environment that supports those projects. The way upper managers define, structure, and act toward projects has an important effect on the success or failure of those projects and, consequently, the success or failure of the organization. This book helps all managers understand the need for project management changes and shows how to develop project management as an organizational practice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781523085507

Randall Englund

Randall L. Englund is an author, speaker, trainer, professional facilitator, and consultant for the Englund Project Management Consultancy. Formerly he was a senior project manager at Hewlett-Packard. He facilitates project management seminars for the Project Management Institute (PMI) and other professional associations and teaches university courses. He is recipient of PMI’s 2018 Eric Jenett Project Management Award of Excellence.

Book preview

Preface

This book is for managers concerned about getting better results from the projects under way in their organizations. New projects that generate new products or services are the principal means of future organizational growth. Projects are the means to implement organizational strategy and organizational change. Projects and project managers create new products, new procedures, new reward systems, new features for old products, and new businesses. The key feature of projects is that they represent something new.

In line with the vision of virtual corporations for the twenty-first century— edgeless, adapting in real time to customers’ changing needs, interacting among multiple, often unrelated processes (Davidow and Malone, 1992)—we believe the true audience for this book is the burgeoning cadre of virtual managers who are or will be responsible for creating new results in cross-organizational environments.

Since the book was first published, much has changed in the world that we comment on; yet little has changed in terms of key principles for managers to address. The second edition validated many of our original findings, included more arguments about why these approaches are important, and provided additional examples of how people implement the concepts.

We are pleased to be part of this movement. It has brought us many new friends. Colonel Gary LaGassey, former project office program manager for the U.S. Air Force base in Aviano, Italy, became a devotee: "At the program level, a considerable part of our approach was derived from the writings and teachings of Robert J. Graham and Randall L. Englund. Their 1997 book, Creating an Environment for Successful Projects: The Quest to Manage Project Management, became our Bible for program leadership during Program Management Office (PMO) start-up and continues to be a fundamental part of our thinking as we work to attain recognition as a truly project-based organization."

Again, much has changed, especially access to technology and social media, and little has changed with regard to human behaviors. Dynamics of people interactions within organizations remain remarkably similar; only the stories change.

Creating an Environment for Successful Projects summarizes the skills of the compleat upper manager. Dictionary.com defines compleat as "highly skilled and accomplished in all aspects; complete; total: the compleat actor, at home in comedy and tragedy. Origin: 1875–80; earlier spelling of complete, used phrasally in allusion to The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton." We believe this historical definition applies as well to this current work. This is why the summary to each chapter uses this phrase.

The second edition of Creating an Environment for Successful Projects continued selling very well, including heavy sales in foreign markets, and appears in numerous collegiate and academic references. While basic premises of the book are timeless, still relevant, and universal, we have updated it to the latest Project Management Body of Knowledge from the Project Management Institute (PMI) and added examples, data, tools, checklists, and templates.

In the second edition, Judd Kuehn noted,

In 1997, Chevron had been deploying our project process for four years and had just created a new organization primarily responsible for project management. As part of the dedicated project organization, we were particularly interested in the work being done by Graham and Englund and others about the environment for project management.

One of the big issues we were debating was how well our project process was being accepted and deployed within the company. We found the issues that Graham and Englund were raising were some of the same ones we were seeing within Chevron. It helped us decide to embark on a more detailed assessment of our internal culture and look for opportunities to expand deployment of our project process and practices.

Judd went on to say, Graham and Englund address a number of key issues in this book that will help anyone involved in managing projects, supporting projects, or managing an organization that does projects. From my view, that covers most businesses today. If you are not doing projects, your business is not growing or changing, and your competition is likely leaving you behind.

This third edition follows the same topics in presenting ten components for creating environments that produce successful projects. We updated content; identified technology changes; added new findings, testimonials, and case studies where the concepts have been applied; and added templates and surveys, along with a benchmark report in a new appendix, to help readers assess and apply the content. Note that we continue using many historical examples, as we believe the learnings they present are still valid.

John D. Trudel (1998) notes that the authors describe what others have achieved, and they tell how to get started. Yet, I find the book’s best content not in what or how, but in why. The book is rich with examples of why typical management behavior interferes with new product development. It clearly explains why upper managers are fearful, why corporate communications are so often poor, and, yes, how to fix such things. The goal is to give project managers the freedom, training, and support to run rather autonomous and effective new product development programs.

Human nature does not change that much. Many upper managers are still not behaving in ways that support project-based work. We believe putting ideas, suggestions, observations, examples, and stories together in one book may serve others well. We draw heavily on cultural anthropological material. And as so many history books attest, it is not always necessary to write something new for the lessons to be meaningful.

The EASI trend chart in Figure P.1 illustrates a slightly evolving trend toward creating environments for successful projects. The Environmental Assessment Survey Instrument, completed by thousands of managers, covers each component from this book. The chart shows that the cumulative average is relatively steady with a nominal upward trend. This means there is still much room for improvement for managers to create more productive organizations.

We are pleased in this third edition to include comments from Michael O’Brochta, president of Zozer, Inc. He says,

Reading this book represented a milestone in my understanding of project management and in my career. My perspective shifted from inside the project to the environment outside of the project. At the time this book was written there was a shortage of information about this outward perspective. I benefited from learning that my project outcomes depended largely on the organizational environment, and I benefited from learning about my opportunities to influence those that controlled that environment. I was so impressed by the information in this book that I used it continually throughout the years following its initial publication to help me create environments for project success for others; I continue to use the information in this book just as much today as ever. I have been stimulated by the information in this book to the degree that I have conducted independent study and research into the project environment; I now write and speak frequently on this subject. The content of this book rings as true today as ever.

FIGURE P.1 EASI Trend Chart

Michael has become a fabulous student, client, colleague, and good friend of our work. As an active participant in PMI worldwide events, he serves as both a content and marketing resource, especially for government markets.

A most notable experience was when James Lee, president of Shive-Hattery Inc., an architectural and engineering firm, engaged Englund to facilitate the firm’s entire management staff on working through contents of Creating an Environment. He required all fifty-five managers to read the book, and he read excerpts from the book in his closing comments.

Glenn A. Carleton testified,

One of the better books on project management, the focus is not so much on specific best practices for project managers to implement on their own within their teams, but how upper management can create an environment that is conducive to project success. This book is exceptionally good at helping to understand how management causes organizational perversity—mucking things up by applying departmental practices that are totally inappropriate and bad practices for project teams. Great insights into how this happens without upper managers being aware they are doing the opposite of what they intend. Could be used by a Project Office to convince upper management that they might be the main problem that keeps other best practices from being effective. It also highlights those areas where you can get the most leverage and the most out of your efforts to get an organization to improve its overall project management effectiveness.

Amazing how a book written earlier seems like it was written for current times.

R. Bankson adds,

As a project management consultant, I get asked a lot how do I implement PM into my company? There is no one cookie-cutter approach to this since every company is different. There is also no one book out there that adequately covers this subject. This book is the closest thing that there is. If you are looking for a good coverage of the things that you need to be aware of in implementing PM into your company, this book is a good start. It is also well suited for executives looking to implement PM into a company who are curious what PM involves—since a major problem in implementing PM into a company quite often involves executives who are unaware or unconcerned what their responsibilities are for PM. All in all, a useful book that I have used extensively for clients.

The following example, of upper managers working with a program management office, mirrors the concepts presented in this book. A program office guided the HP and Compaq merger to exceed savings by more than $1 billion and one year ahead of schedule. Jim Arena, director of integration effectiveness, benchmarked more than twenty companies about how to do a tech merger on this scale. Structure follows strategy and adopt and go became guiding principles for a rigorous, shared program management discipline. The integration team established core program teams covering the businesses, functions, horizontal processes, and regions. The whole company was represented in weekly clean room meetings; these high-level managers worked full time on the merger with no other line duties, from the announcement at the beginning through legal close. These upper management teams served as a guiding coalition to drive change, provide guidance, review decisions, and make trade-offs.

The program office set a cadence to get people into a new operating mode. They had clear strategic goals and senior management support to focus on one solution to each issue, not optimized or merged but perfect enough. They suspended operating reality to cover major buckets of customers and business processes with rules, not exceptions. Instead of slipping into paralysis over the immense amount of work to accomplish, the right people quickly got expert proposals, decided courses for action, and moved on. They used techniques like decision accelerator meetings, which brought cross-functional leaders together to resolve a set of key issues in one day via planned facilitated discussions. They accelerated lessons learned at the highest levels by seeing whole pictures and applying structured rigorous processes—project portfolio management. They created clear product road maps. Fast-start workshops served as an information system to share with every employee how the new company would operate and allowed managers to engage up front with their employees.

What lessons were learned? Jim Arena says, Start it earlier. The program office was behind and spent two months racing to catch up. He also says, Reporting was used too extensively to force discipline and behavior changes. This appeared necessary at the time but created a bad taste in the mouth for many people. We learned to drop nuisance factors and focus more visibility on top-level choices. The learnings from intense efforts on completing core integration steps can now be applied truly to exploit the strengths that the two companies brought to the merger.

The environment created by implementing a project-based approach can also be seen in comments like the following: Ten months ago I started a new company and I am practicing all the principles explained in your book in order to create the right environment for success.

Although project managers are most closely responsible for the success of projects, upper managers ultimately create an environment for project success. The way that the directors of divisions, departments, functions, and sections define, structure, and act toward projects has an important effect on the success or failure of those projects and, consequently, the success or failure of the organization. This book is designed to help upper managers create environments in which projects can be more successful.

When project failures create a focus on the need to change the way projects are managed, people soon learn that this change profoundly affects the entire organization. Successful projects require participation from many parts of the organization; the development of successful project management practices cannot be accomplished in one or two departments alone. Skills in managing across organizations need to be developed. The implementation of successful practices requires a coordinated effort involving all departments in an organization. The change needs to be systematic and system-wide.

Upper management roles and practices will necessarily change in the move to a project-based organization. It is important to implement changes that support successful project management practices. Upper managers also need to recognize how their behavior can hinder project success and to understand and change those management practices that do so. This book contains valuable insight into such practices and illustrates proven methods that help managers support project success.

Leading the charge for something new are customers, who want more for less. They are finding competitors that are learning how to satisfy their demands. This book shows what managers need to do to keep new products coming from their organization rather than a competitor’s.

Management changes rarely work unless upper management of an organization is heavily involved. Nor are management changes typically successful unless the people affected by the change understand the reasons for the change and participate in its design. This book helps all managers understand the need for project management changes, whether or not they directly manage project managers. Although there are many books on how to manage projects and programs, this book fills the void on how to develop project management as an organizational practice. Other books create intense awareness about what to do; this book also describes why and how some organizations implement the concepts. A first-level anecdote is a story about what others have done that often motivates a reader to adopt the concept being described; we go further to provide second-order anecdotes that describe how to get started and illustrate creative ways to adapt and apply potent practices. We share details of an organizational process of support for project management as practiced by leading companies.

We hope this edition continues and expands these practices and friendships.

Outline of Topics

Chapter One examines the need for project management in business organizations and the development of project-based organizations. We examine the future post-bureaucratic or organic organization, the type of organization where projects are most successful. We then outline steps necessary to revitalize organizations and change them to project-based organizations.

Chapter Two examines one of the components of a successful environment: linking projects to organizational strategy. It begins by describing what happens to projects without a strategic emphasis. With a strategic emphasis, everyone on the project team understands how their actions affect the success of the project and, ultimately, the success of the organization. Discussion continues on how strategic emphasis eliminates the need for project budgets. We offer a process for project portfolio management, noting also that more and more organizations are now embracing this process and implementing more project selection teams. Then we discuss the role of upper management in multiple project management.

The next two chapters examine upper management practices that thwart the successful development of project management. Topics include setting the project deadline, allowing time for planning and creativity, the folly of adding people when a project is perceived to be late, the problems of changing project scope because of anxiety, the need for motivating project work, and the importance of developing a core team system. We embrace an organizational learning process that starts where people come from and takes them along paths other than those that would lead them astray.

Chapter Five addresses the problem of organizing the project management effort. We review the problems of running projects in a traditional functional or matrix organization. Possible solutions offered are the internal market type of organization and the project-based organization. The chapter includes a discussion of the functions of upper management in defining and operating a project organization. Note that this chapter does not prescribe a perfect organizational structure, as we believe that one does not currently exist.

Chapter Six covers the importance of information in the successful project management environment. A novel approach is suggested of basing the information system on answering the questions of major project stakeholders. We discuss the problems of developing such an information system and its function in organizational learning. Note that the internet is now a prevailing medium for information sharing, especially as virtual organizations become more common.

Chapter Seven discusses project manager selection and development. The chapter begins by outlining the problems with the accidental project manager, currently favored in many organizations. We then review numerous studies of project manager selection criteria, a project manager selection process, and a process for transition to the project manager’s role.

Chapter Eight covers the basic principles of the learning organization. We stress the importance of learning from projects for developing skill at leading projects. We describe a project retrospective process as a formalized means to learn from projects, and provide a project retrospective form for this process.

Finally, we give examples of how to implement the needed changes. Chapter Nine reviews the project management initiative process at HP. This process helped both upper managers and project managers create an environment for successful projects. The chapter covers the components of the initiative process and the functions of the initiative team. These include consulting, training, and information resources as well as the project management conference. There is now an increased emphasis on the project office concept with a focus on following best practices for project management, rather than a particular approach. Chapter Ten covers similar project management programs in other organizations and outlines what needs to be done to implement such a program in organizations whose culture differs from that of the organizations discussed in this book. This chapter includes more ideas on assessment and implementation of a project-based organization. An epilogue adds additional thoughts on leadership, visualizing a pervasive project manager culture, and the change process.

We, the authors, consider this book to be a work in progress, the final goal being the development of a set of best practices for creating an environment for successful projects. We ask readers to think critically about what applies or not in the material we present, knowing that tailoring implementation is highly dependent on current circumstances. We also know that you, the readers, will probably be following some very good practices that are not mentioned in this book. Those of you who are wrestling with organizational change and implementing new practices are the ones who know best what works and what does not. If you would like to share your experiences for possible inclusion in future editions of this book or if you want to comment on anything included in this edition, feel free to contact us through the email addresses provided at the end of the book.

This chapter begins with a typical scenario, a story of project failure, that leads to an outline of the components required to create an environment for successful projects. It examines the need for project management in business organizations and includes examples of successful organizational responses to that need. It then looks at project-based organizations as a basis for moving forward and the tenets of that organizational style. Leading the change to project-based organic organizations requires understanding organizational change processes, so we examine a revitalization process as a model of organizational change. Leading a revitalization requires a strong change agent, so we review behaviors necessary to be a successful change agent. Finally, we summarize important points of the chapter as a quick reference guide for the successful complete upper manager.

CHAPTER ONE

Leading Change to a Project-Based Organization

When all the conditions of an event are present, it comes to pass.

HEGEL, PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

Most future growth in organizations will result from successful development projects that generate new products, services, or procedures. Such projects are also a principal way of creating organizational change; implementing change and growth strategies is usually entrusted to project managers. However, project success is often as much a result of the organizational environment as of the skills of the project manager. As the size and importance of projects increase, the project manager becomes the head of a complex development operation with an organizational dimension that can make important contributions to project success or failure. That this organizational dimension may help explain project performance has been strangely neglected in the literature, a problem we address here by examining the role of upper management in creating an environment that promotes project success.

All too commonly, people become project managers by accident. One way to become a project manager is to ask a question at a meeting and then be told, That’s a good question. Why don’t you take on the project of dealing with that problem? Or somebody comes up with an idea and is tapped to make it happen, or the generator of the idea looks around for the first person in sight to whom it can be assigned for implementation. Experience indicates that in the process of developing projects, upper managers often appoint inexperienced or accidental project managers (APMs), give them a project to manage, and then systematically undermine their ability to achieve success. Upper managers do not usually undermine APMs on purpose, but too often they apply assumptions and methods to project management that are more appropriate to regular departmental management. Projects are a totally different beast in many ways. Everyday management generally is a matter of repeating various standard processes; projects, in contrast, create something new.

In addition, upper managers are often unaware of how their behavior influences project success or failure. Because previous examinations of project success focus almost exclusively on the functions of the project manager, there is an understandable lack of awareness of the importance of the project environment and the behavior of middle and higher managers in organizations—those managers of project managers whom we refer to as upper managers. It is important to understand the impact of their behavior on the future survival of organizations. Roles and responsibilities are changing as organizations become organic and project based—that is, driven by internal markets and team accountability for specific results. Any lapses by upper managers in the authenticity and integrity of their dealings with project managers and with managers in other departments are likely to have a severe impact on the achievement of project goals.

Upper managers can emulate successful gardeners: best results occur when creating an environment for systems to perform the way they innately know how to.

A Scenario

Many upper managers voice increasing frustration with the results of projects undertaken in their areas of responsibility. They lament that despite sending people out for training and buying project management software, projects seem to take too long, cost too much, and produce less than the desired results. Why is that? To help understand the problem, consider the following scenario.

An upper manager gets an idea, perhaps from reading a book or attending a conference, and has a vision of a product or service that the organization can offer. This vision may differ from what the company normally provides, so creating the product becomes a special project. Talking it over with associates, the manager is delighted when one of the best engineers becomes interested. To get the concept rolling, the manager asks this engineer to manage the project. They both figure the project can be done quickly because the engineer has achieved good results on past work. The new project manager talks to a few colleagues, and soon a team of engineers begins working on the design. After a while, the team comes back to the upper manager with good news and bad news. The good news is that a certain technology needed for the project is available inside the organization; it was developed in another division, however, so the team needs to borrow a few people from there to get it. The bad news is that another needed technology is not available in the organization, so new people will have to be hired. The upper manager arranges to borrow people from the other division and authorizes hiring the needed employees from the outside.

Delay begins about here. The new employees must be approved by the executive committee and then must have job descriptions defined and developed by the personnel department. Because these new people know the latest technology, they are expensive; even so, it takes them longer than expected to become productive once they are on board because they are not used to the ways of their new employer. Eventually, however, the whole group gets working—until a manager from the other division, for which this special project is not a priority, takes back the borrowed engineers. Work slows again as the upper manager tries to negotiate their return. Some engineers are finally freed for the project, but they are not the original engineers and thus they lack the requisite skills, which results in more delays until they are brought up to speed.

When work finally resumes, questions arise about marketing the new product and about using patented technology to create it. The upper manager must therefore add people from the marketing and legal departments to the project. Sure enough, the lawyers ascertain that the new employees inadvertently used a technology patented by another company; the upper manager must determine whether it is cheaper to pay for its use or develop an alternative technology. Communication with the new project team members from marketing is difficult because marketing uses a different email system from that of the engineering and legal departments. Decision making is further delayed as upper managers argue over a number of manufacturing issues that came up on previous projects but were never resolved.

The team grows disgruntled as it becomes clear that the great engineer is not skilled in planning and conflict management; the situation is not improved when the engineer disappears for several weeks to fix problems that arose from a previous project. Elsewhere in the organization, people begin to grumble that the project is costing lots and accomplishing little. Some do not believe the project is a good idea. The upper manager spends time justifying the project to other department managers but cannot avoid finally being called before the executive committee to explain why it is taking so long and costing so much.

If this scenario seems at all far-fetched, consider this letter that one of us received:

I work in a planning and distribution organization. My duties include leading efforts that are called projects and generally I’m fixing a problem with a process or system. Rarely do I get due dates or objectives … and when I press my sponsor[s] on this point they tell me essentially that they just want it done. Coupled with this the department has difficulty achieving the full intent of the objectives, and we are pretty unproductive (we don’t get many projects completed in a year). We are putting together a proposal including development of dedicated project managers in the organization whose entire job is to lead the projects of the organization (as opposed to the current method of choosing people whose work is closely aligned to the project).

Unfortunately, some managers feel strongly that they do not want their resources utilized by the project managers (and subject to the project manager’s discretion). Plus, they want to have access to their people to pursue their own objectives (this includes assigning one of their people as project lead[er] regardless of skill). At this point we need help in convincing these managers to support the process of project management …

You can almost hear the voice trailing off in a sigh of frustration.

Another problem is the assumption that project work should take about as long as traditional work. This sets expectations that can never be met, so projects always seem slower and more costly than other activities. Actually, they should take longer; project work represents something new and different, so the inevitable unknowns, such as those in the scenario, need to be factored into the expected length. It is also a false assumption that project work can be handled in the same way as other work, using the same organization and the same people. In reality, because project work is different, it requires a project-based organization. The project in the scenario failed because upper management had not created an environment for project success.

Creating an Environment for Successful Projects

What environmental components foster successful projects? Many misconceptions develop into folklore over time, such as the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme (see Box 1.1). The king’s men may not have been able to put Humpty’s pieces together, but the key pieces needed to create a picture of a supportive project environment (see Figure 1.1) can be readily assembled with this book as a guide.

A word of caution: the pieces we are assembling will not stay together without glue, and the glue has two vital ingredients: authenticity and integrity. Authenticity means that people really mean what they say. Integrity means that they really do what they say they will do, and for the reasons they stated initially. It is a recurring theme in this book that authenticity and integrity link the head and the heart, the words and actions; they separate belief from disbelief and often make the difference between success and failure.

BOX 1.1 A Challenge

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the King’s Horses

And all the King’s Men

Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

The character in this nursery rhyme is usually represented as an egg that falls and breaks. In reality, a humpty dumpty was a type of military cannon. During a battle, it was put up on a wall. When the cannon was fired, the recoil sent it off the wall to the ground, where it came apart. The king’s horses were the cavalry, and the king’s men were the army. They were there to win the battle, but they couldn’t put Humpty the cannon together again: they were not able to put together all the pieces required for success.

FIGURE 1.1 The Components of an Environment for Successful Projects

Each of the ten pieces in the figure is the subject of a chapter in this book.

1. Lead Change to a Project-Based Organization. The balance of this chapter examines a process for changing organizations and discusses the requirements of change agents. Changing to a project-based organization requires changes in the behavior of upper managers and project managers. For example, a project-based organization must also be team based; to create such an organization, upper managers and project managers themselves need to work together as a team.

2. Link Projects to Strategy. It is important to link projects to strategy. Upper managers need to work together to develop a strategic emphasis for projects. One factor in motivating project team members is to show them that the project they are working on has been selected as a result of a strategic plan. If they instead feel that the project was selected on a whim, that nobody wants it or supports it, and that it will most likely be canceled, they will probably (and understandably) not do their best work. Upper managers can help avoid this problem by linking the project to the strategic plan and developing a portfolio of projects that implements the plan. Many organizations use upper management teams to manage the project portfolio; this approach would certainly have reduced the problems and delays depicted in the previous scenario.

Chevron, for example, developed the Chevron Project Development and Execution Process (CPDEP), which provides a formalized discipline for managing projects (Cohen and Kuehn, 1996). A key element of CPDEP is the involvement of all stakeholders at the appropriate time. In the initial process phase to identify and assess opportunities, a multifunctional team of upper managers meets to test the opportunity for strategic fit and to develop a preliminary overall plan. The project does not proceed from this phase unless there is a good fit with the overall strategy. Developing a process for selecting and managing a portfolio of projects is the subject of Chapter Two.

3. Understand Upper Management Influence. Many of the best practices of project management often fail to get upper management support. Many upper managers are unaware of how their behavior influences project success. To help ensure success, they are advised to develop a project support system that incorporates such practices as negotiating the project deadline, supporting the creative process, allowing time for and supporting the concept of project planning, choosing not to interfere in project execution, demanding no useless scope changes, and changing the reward system to motivate project work. These topics are considered in Chapter Three.

4. Implement a Core Team Process. A core team consists of people who represent the various departments necessary to complete a project. This team needs to be developed at the beginning of the project, and its members perform most effectively when they stay with the project from beginning to end. Developing a core team process and making it work are essential to minimizing project cycle time and avoiding unnecessary delays. Important as they are, however, core teams are rarely implemented well without the implicit and explicit support of upper management. Firms that have used core teams often report dramatic results. Cadillac (1991), for example, found that core teams can accomplish styling changes that previously took 175 weeks in 90–150 weeks. Developing a core team is the subject of Chapter Four.

5. Organize for Project Management. The revitalization process described in Chapter One provides the impetus in Chapter Five for determining how an organization may be changed to support proper project management. In the scenario earlier in this chapter, much of the delay can be attributed to the lack of an organizational design that supports project management. In contrast, the decentralized corporate culture of Hewlett-Packard (HP), as one example, gives business managers a great deal of freedom in tackling new challenges. Upper managers have a responsibility to set up organizational structures that support successful projects. Because structure influences behavior, Chapter Five reviews the characteristics of alternative organizational structures and examines what can be done to alleviate some of the problems caused by certain structures.

6. Design a Project Management Information System. In the past, organizational policies, procedures, and authority relationships held things together. The project-based organization lacks much of that structural framework; instead, the project organization is kept intact by an information system. For example, former HP executive vice president Rick Belluzzo (1996b) envisioned a people-centric information environment that provides access to information anytime, anywhere … and that spurs the development of a wide range of specialized devices and services that people can use to enrich their personal and professional lives. Upper managers need to work in concert to design information systems that support successful projects and provide information across the organization. In this regard, online technological capabilities are increasingly attractive and important but do not replace the need for upper management to determine what information is necessary and develop systems to provide it. Chapter Six covers this in depth.

7. Select and Develop Project Managers. Developed organizations will see the end of the APM. Project management needs to be seen as a viable position, not just a temporary annoyance, and project management skill needs to become a core organizational competence. This requires a conscious, planned program for project manager selection and training. HP, Computer Science Corporation, Keane, and 3M are among the companies that have spent large amounts on project manager training and development, as discussed in Chapter Seven. The development emphasis of these organizations seems justified because the project managers of today will become the leaders of the project-based organization of tomorrow. This is such an important topic that Bowen, Clark, Halloway, and Wheelwright (1994a) advise organizations to make projects the school for leaders.

8. Cultivate a Learning Organization. Chapter Eight summarizes the concepts of organizational learning as they apply to project-based organizations. One key to organizational learning is the post-project review, which helps project participants and the rest of the organization learn from project experiences. Although its value may be priceless and its cost nil, this learning process takes place only if upper managers set up a formal program and require the reviews. When they do, many tools for project improvement can be developed that can help eliminate frustrating delays. For example, British Petroleum (BP) has operated a post-project appraisal unit since 1977 (Gulliver, 1987), and BP managers attribute dramatic results to it. By learning from past projects, they say that they are much more on target in developing new project proposals, have a much better idea of how long projects take, and thus experience less frustration at perceived project delays. Learning from project experience becomes a major emphasis in project-based organizations and can be seen as a competitive advantage.

9. Develop a Project Management Initiative. HP had an ongoing initiative to continually improve its project management practices. Dubbed the Project Management Initiative, it was part of senior management’s breakthrough objective to get the right products to market quickly and effectively. An initiative group works with upper managers and project managers to increase project management knowledge and practice throughout the organization. Project management became very important to HP’s success because more than half of customer orders typically came from products it introduced within the previous two years. Shorter product life cycles mean more new projects are needed to maintain growth. Marvin Patterson, a former director of corporate engineering at HP, says, Due to my experience since I left HP, I would say that HP probably has the best project managers in the world, or at least in this hemisphere. The Project Management Initiative made a huge contribution to this success (personal conversation). The details of an initiative process are presented in Chapter Nine. This approach can be extrapolated into a more general project or program management office.

10. Create an Environment for Successful Projects in Your Organization. Chapter Ten provides suggestions for adapting and applying the concepts in this book to cultural environments that differ from those described herein. For example, Honeywell developed a global information technology project management initiative based on its chief information officer’s desire to have modern project management disciplines throughout Honeywell Information Systems be the way of doing business and a core competency. To accomplish this, the initiative group developed a project management focus group of fifteen people from different departments to discuss the basis of good project management. With input from this group, the initiative team developed a project management model, a project management process, and a supporting training and education curriculum; it also promotes a professional project manager certification process. The team’s vision was for Honeywell Information Systems to be recognized as a world-class leader in modern Information Technology Project Management principles, processes, and practices (Koroknay, 1996, p. x).

3M developed the Project Management Professional Development Center, which consisted of people and services from three information technology organizations. A center offers consulting help for project teams, research on the latest best practices and help in applying them, and a project management competency model supported by a project leader curriculum. It also sponsors a project leader forum, where project leaders can meet in person to share stories and problems. Communication is enhanced by an electronic post office, a communications network linking all project managers (Storeygard, 1995). These and other company efforts are detailed in Chapter Ten